North Korea on Wednesday said it has issued a standing order for the execution of former South Korean president Park Geun-hye and her spy chief for what it said was a plot to assassinate its leader, demanding that the South hand the pair over.
The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said a “revelation showed” that Park had masterminded a plot to execute its “supreme leadership” in 2015 and it was imposing the “death penalty on traitor Park Geun-hye” and former South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) director Lee Byung-ho.
KCNA did not disclose the source of the “revelation,” but a Japanese newspaper reported this week that Park in 2015 approved a plan to overturn the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Park was ousted in March over a corruption scandal and is in detention in South Korea while on trial.
The NIS said it was “unpardonable” that North Korea made threats against its citizens, adding that the news report of a plot to kill Kim “had no grounds.”
Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, citing sources familiar with Park’s North Korea policy, on Monday reported that Park had signed off on a plot to remove Kim and that the plan was orchestrated by the NIS.
“We declare at home and abroad that we will impose the death penalty on traitor Park Geun-hye and the ex-director of the puppet intelligence service ... criminals of hideous state-sponsored terrorism who hatched and pressed for the heinous plot to hurt the supreme leadership of the DPRK,” KCNA said, using the acronym for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“We declare that in case the US and the South Korean puppet forces again attempt at hideous state-sponsored terrorism targeting the supreme leadership ... we will impose summary punishment without advance notice,” KCNA said.
The statement was issued jointly by the North’s Ministry of State Security, the Ministry of People’s Security and the Central Public Prosecutors’ Office, KCNA said.
In May, North Korea accused the US Central Intelligence Agency and the NIS of another plot to assassinate its “supreme leadership” with a biochemical weapon.
At that time, it also demanded the handover of Lee.
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